


Let It All Burn

by katayla



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/pseuds/katayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Katniss survived the Games. Peeta didn't. Takes place during her first Games as a mentor. (Assumes no Quarter Quell.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let It All Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ghostie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostie/gifts).



The girl died right away.

 

Not the girl. _Kori._ I didn’t want to become Haymitch. He told me not to bother with her. The tributes from the previous winner’s district were always at a higher risk. And if the previous winner was from District 12? And was Katniss, the girl who was on fire? She didn’t have a chance.

 

But I wanted to believe differently. Only she was a merchant’s daughter. Pampered. Never had had to think about her survival until her name was pulled out of the glass ball. So I’d tried to pass on tips. Teach her how to hold a bow, throw a knife, recognize edible plants.

 

And Haymith looked on and snorted, but at least didn’t say anything in front of her.

 

Kori hadn’t even tried. She worried about her dress, her hair, ate all the fancy Capitol food, and I couldn’t get her to understand she had to _survive_.

 

And now she was cut down before she even had time to step off of the platform. Killed by the female tribute from District One, who didn’t even bother to check that her arrow shot true.

 

“Katniss, look.” Haymitch nudged my shoulder and I saw Jarrett sprinting toward the woods.

 

I didn’t know much about him. He was from the Seam and about my age, but had always kept to himself. Hovered at the back of crowds until you forgot he was there.

 

And, perhaps, had paid attention to what Kori had not. He’d done exactly what he was supposed to and didn’t even glance at the Cornucopia. Nobody seemed to notice him.

 

In fact, he was so boring the cameras only showed glimpses of him that first day. He found water, some edible plants and climbed a tree.

 

“A tribute who listens,” Haymith said. “How novel.”

 

And then our eyes met and I knew we were both thinking of Peeta. Peeta, who had done everything asked and more, who died so that I could live.

 

“It doesn’t work,” I murmured. “Not in there.”

 

“No.”

 

I’d looked up Haymitch’s Games after getting out of the arena. He hadn’t played by the rules either. If you weren’t a Career Tribute, I don’t think you _could_ follow the rules and survive. The Games were like that. You survive by brute force or intelligence or luck.

 

Haymitch went to his room after a while. Said he was going to get drunk and I should do the same. But, instead, I stared at the screen.

 

I’d grown up watching the Games, of course, but never like this. Never knowing what everyone was going through. Never knowing how it felt to be hunted, to know people were trying to kill you. Sometimes, it felt like the Seam was trying to kill you, but it was impersonal. It beat down everyone. In the Games, it was about _you._

 

Marni, the girl from District One, was brutal. It wasn’t just Kori. She set her sights on the girl from District Eleven next. For no reason that I could tell. Salina wasn’t much like Rue had been. She was older. Old enough to be jaded. She didn’t even put up much of a fight. Just surrendered like it was a relief.

 

“I’d put my money on her,” Haymitch said. He would appear and reappear throughout the day. Sometimes a lot drunk, sometimes only a little, but always smelling of alcohol.

 

“Maybe,” I said. “If the others don’t take her down.”

 

But it appeared Marni had a plan for that, too. She’d taken a cue from me and Peeta and twisted it. She’d cozied up to her fellow District One tribute. Cruz was one of the classic Careers. Huge. Menacing. A match for anyone in the arena.

 

Except when Marni smiled at him. I’d noticed it in training, the way she’d slip up next to him, put her hand on his arm, and ask a question or give a compliment. Remembered what it was like to play the part. Remembered what it was like to have the boy fall for it, believe every word you said.

 

And, just like Peeta, Cruz had paid for it with his life. He and Marni had found shelter in the hollow of a hill. She waited until he fell asleep and then stabbed him. No hesitation, no last look, nothing.

 

She killed him and waited for his corpse to be taken away and fell asleep.

 

I shuddered. I didn’t want her to win.

 

Elsewhere, tributes were dying. Dying, dying, dying. Some killed by each other’s hands, some by the elements. The river flooded and took out the girl from District Nine. A Career broke his neck falling out of a tree. Stupid.

 

And Jarrett slipped around it all. He didn’t kill anyone. Didn’t do anything to make anyone take notice of him and I wondered if they’d forgotten him. I began to hope.

 

It was a good strategy. Winners had used it in the past.

 

“Won’t work,” Haymitch said.

 

“What won’t work?” I asked. The screen had flashed on Jarrett and then on each of the remaining tributes. There were seven now.

 

“Makes for a boring Games. Can’t have a winner who doesn’t do anything.”

 

“He’ll have to do something eventually.”

 

“He won’t.”

 

And now I turned to glare at him. “You don’t know that.”

 

Haymitch snorted. “When you’ve seen as many Games as I have, you know how they’re going to turn out.”

 

“So you knew I was going to win?”

 

“Well, you have a point there.” And he sat down next to me.

 

Nobody died that day.

 

“Brace yourself for tomorrow,” Haymith said. He put a hand on my shoulder, ever so briefly, and headed off to bed.

 

But I stared at the screen all night. It was easy to believe I wasn’t watching the Games at all. The tributes each had their own separate area now. All alliances broken. Even Marni looked almost peaceful. Like a girl from a world without the Games.

 

And then morning hit and the lightening began.

 

Jarrett was forced out of the tree. Out of the forest. They all were.

 

I tensed. I remembered this. Forcing everyone together. Making them confront each other.

 

“Here,” Haymitch said. He’d appeared again and shoved a bottle in my hand.

 

“No.” I pushed it away.

 

“You’ll need it.”

 

Jarrett didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t have a chance. I don’t know who took him out. It all happened too quickly.

 

I stared at the screen until another tribute died.

 

And then stood up.

 

“I don’t want to watch anymore.”

 

“You’re a mentor now, sweetheart.” And Haymitch looked at me and I could see the shadows of all the kids he’d mentored who died. Everyone but me.

 

He handed me the bottle.

 

This time, I took it.


End file.
